I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of telephony. In particular, this invention relates to an apparatus and method for processing incoming calls during a call-in-progress.
II. Description of the Related Art
A call waiting feature which interrupts a call-in-progress is well known in the art. Call waiting enables a called party busy on another call to learn about an incoming call and gives the called party the opportunity to interrupt the ongoing call to accept the incoming call. While call waiting is a useful feature which enables a called party to discontinue lesser important telephone calls in favor of emergency or important calls, subscribers to call waiting may be annoyed by unwanted calls since the typical call waiting feature signals the called party with only a beep or tone to indicate another call is waiting. Furthermore, the original caller or called party may become annoyed when a new caller attempts to interrupt the current call-in-progress.
Caller ID is a service provided by a telephone service provider that provides a user with information regarding an incoming call. Typically, a display associated with a user""s telephone, either integrated into the telephone or as part of an adjunct box coupled to the telephone, will display the telephone number and/or name associated with an incoming call. In Type I Caller ID, which operates when the user""s telephone is in an on-hook state (i.e., the user is not already engaged in a call-in-progress while the incoming call is arriving), the Caller ID data is provided by a central office of the service provider as frequency shift keying (FSK) data sent between the first and second rings. The user, after the first ring, can thus look at the display to decide, based on the displayed Caller ID information, whether to answer an incoming telephone call.
Type II Caller ID, also known as Caller ID with Call Waiting (CID/CW), operates with the user""s telephone in an off-hook state (i.e., already engaged in a telephone call while the incoming call is arriving). In addition to the familiar single audible tone, known as a Subscriber Alert Signal (xe2x80x9cSAS tonexe2x80x9d), that alerts a user to an incoming call waiting telephone call, the central office provides a Caller ID Alert Signal (xe2x80x9cCAS tonexe2x80x9d) to inform the user""s telephone equipment that Caller ID data is about to be transmitted, pending receipt of an acknowledgment from the user""s telephone equipment. Based on the CAS tone, the user""s telephone briefly mutes its transducers (i.e., microphone and speaker) so that the FSK data is not heard by the user or corrupted by the user""s speech. The muting period is sufficiently brief that it does not appreciably disrupt the voice communication between the parties to the conversation. The user, after hearing the SAS tone, can then view the display to determine whether to flash-hook over to the incoming call and temporarily place the existing call into a hold status. The flash-hook operation is accomplished by briefly pressing or activating a switch-hook button, which is normally in a first position, such as down, when the telephone is on-hook, and in a second position, such as up, when the telephone is off-hook, to alert the central office to the desire to switch to the incoming call.
Though it is nice to have Caller ID data displayed on a cordless handset, when a call is in progress, it is inconvenient to read the Caller ID (type 2) data since the user is using the handset for the call-in-progress. To view the Caller ID data the user must interrupt the call-in-progress to look at the Caller ID display. This is disruptive to the call-in-progress.
The present invention provides an apparatus and method for identifying the type of incoming call received (blocked, unknown, non-priority or priority incoming calls, as defined below) during a call-in-progress by use of unique audible indicators.
The present invention provides an apparatus and method for processing an incoming call during a call-in-progress. The apparatus and method detect an incoming call from a new caller to a subscriber telephony device, determines whether the subscriber telephony device is busy on a call with a first telephony device, determines interruption information about a second telephony device used for the incoming call when the subscriber telephony device is busy, wherein the interruption information identifies whether the incoming call originates from a blocked, unknown, non-priority or priority caller and generates one of a several unique audible signals which are sent to the subscriber telephony device based on the interruption information.
In one exemplary embodiment the apparatus includes a communication station for detecting an incoming call from a new subscriber telephony device and determining whether the subscriber telephony device is busy on a call with a first telephony device, and an adjunct processor for determining interruption information about the incoming call from the second telephony device (blocked, unknown, non-priority, priority) and generating one of several unique audible signals based on the interruption information. In another exemplary embodiment the above apparatus is contained with the subscriber telephony device.